Nightmares
by Nuttyshake
Summary: "So…do you want to talk about it?" "Benson, it was just a dream! I'm fine!" "I swear, it'll help you." Sam bit her lip and sighed, pondering her decision. "What I'm about to say is influenced by a lack of sleep, alright? I wouldn't talk to you about it under normal circumstances and if you ask me tomorrow I will deny everything. This has to stay between us."


**This one shot came into my mind while I was reading Catching Fire. I'd describe it as fluff, but it also faces some serious topics. I hope you like it. **

"Yes, mom, don't worry! I'll be staying at Carly's tonight. We have to finish this school project I was telling you about…" There _was_ a project the three of them had to work on, but they had actually finished it a couple of hours before, thanks to Carly and Freddie's dedication and…well, Sam's lying on the couch and eating, which hadn't actually helped at all.

Mrs. Benson gasped, her hand shooting dramatically up to her chest. "You're spending the _night_ at _Carly's_?"

Freddie sighed and shook his head. "It's not like we're alone, mom, Sam is there too, you know…"

"Oh, so you're spending the night with _Carly _and _Sam_?"

"Mom!" Freddie blushed furiously. "We've been having sleepovers for years now!"

"I was not born yesterday, Fredward Benson! They're your ex-girlfriends and I know how teenagers and their raging hormones are!"

"Spencer will be there, in the room next to ours!" Freddie blushed even more, if possible. "I'll have my own sleeping bag!"

"You know, Spencer isn't exactly the most mature and responsible adult you could find."

"He'll be keeping an eye on us!" he pleaded. "We just have to finish the project! You can come in the morning and we'll all be in our separate beds!"

"You mean, separate _rooms_."

"_Alright_!" he sighed, exasperated. "I'll sleep in Spencer's room, and he will sleep on the couch! Happy?"

His mother stared at him for a moment, as if drinking in his appearance before something horrible happened to him. Then, she nodded reluctantly. "Alright, you can go. But I'll be keeping an eye on you too!" she added as Freddie started celebrating.

"Sure, mom! Thanks!" He quickly grabbed the sleeping bag and the pajamas he had dropped on his bed and rushed to the front door, mumbling an unintelligible "bye".

You could say Carly, Sam and Freddie were together 24/7. Carly and Freddie would walk together to school where they'd see Sam, or the three of them would walk together if Sam had slept at Carly's, then they'd have their classes and after school, to Spencer's dismay, Carly would always bring Sam and Freddie home with her and spend the afternoon with them, until they had to go home. Sam and Freddie would frequently forget they had homes during the years. They would all live together one day, so why couldn't they have a sleepover?

Carly, Sam and Freddie spent the night watching tv, playing stupid games, brainstorming for iCarly and just talking for a while, which mostly included Carly and Sam talking about cute boys or doing their makeup and him staying away in a corner since no one cared about his latest editing program and only intervening to occasionally insult Ms. Briggs and Mr. Howard and talk about the webshow.

Then, Sam decided to put on a horror movies marathon, ignoring Freddie and Carly's requests of not being scarred for life. Freddie actually liked horror movies, and he watched them when his mother wasn't home as a sign of rebellion, but he knew Sam well enough to know her movies would give him nightmares, and Carly…well, she had never liked horror movies at all.

As expected, Carly left the studio half hour in the first movie, covering her eyes and crying. The door slammed as she shrieked she was going to bed, and Sam and Freddie were left alone in the room. When the violence and gore started, Freddie covered his face in the beanbag.

Sam noticed and, after tearing her eyes away from her beloved movie, started laughing at him. "Oh, c'mon, Benson! It's not that bad!"

"He snapped the guy's neck and now he's kicking him all over!" he whined, not daring to open his eyes.

Sam shook her head. "You're such a girl. This movie is so fake! I mean…look at that. Is it supposed to be blood? And it's so obvious that's a stunt! They never show his face! And the lights? It's dark all around them, but who knows why they can see each other! A super hero sight!"

Freddie chuckled lightly, and sneaked a peek at the movie. The killer had finished kicking his victim and now he was running away.

"Look!" Sam pointed to the screen. "He's running away! Careful, you don't want to slip on the blood that's _everywhere_! What shoes are you wearing, dude? How can you still be standing?"

Freddie furrowed his eyebrows. "Wait, is the guy dead? I see his chest rising…"

"Oh, he's not! Look! There's _obviously_ another killer in that alley! What a coincidence! They're taking him to their car! In the trunk, oh, they're so creative!"

"They just put him in there without looking! And obviously the trunk is filled with hairpins and levers, I mean, who doesn't have them in their trunk?"

Sam laughed. "Exactly! They're closing him in and he's waking up! There's casually a torch next to him! He's all beaten up, but he can light it and force the trunk open in less than a second!"

"How is it that all the killers are competing for this guy tonight? Look, there's a guy beaten up to a pulp! Let's take him with us, if we kill them it can reinforce our reputation!"

"Whoever directed this movie should be sued, along with its screenwriter!" Sam agreed.

He found it was much easier to watch horror movies with Sam around, no matter how horrible and violent they were. She reminded him it was all fake. Nightmares weren't coming to him that night.

When the marathon ended, it was 3 o'clock in the morning. Sam and Freddie were so tired they had almost dozed off on their bean bags. Sam was already half asleep, causing Freddie to pick her up and take her to Carly's room. He laid Sam down on Carly's bed, who was snoring loudly since she didn't have her snoring machine on, and walked to the door to get out, trying not to make noises.

"Freddie?" he suddenly heard Sam's tired, muffled voice. "Where are you going?"

He turned around and found Sam half sitting on the bed, her eyes open but heavy with sleep, looking at him. "Sleeping." It sounded more like a question than an answer.

"Why don't you sleep here? Just pick up your sleeping bag." Her face fell in the pillow.

Freddie thought her lack of sleep was making her say things she hadn't thought about. "I have to stay in Spencer's room, my mother said-"

"You're such a nub." she murmured as she rolled on the other side.

"She will check..."

"It's not like we're having a threesome! Just relax and go to sleep!"

Freddie laughed and sighed. Well, it's not like his mother would knock the door down at three in the morning. "I'll be right back."

He closed the door quietly and then stumbled down the stairs to Spencer's room. Spencer was curled up in his covers and hugging his pillow, deep asleep. Freddie was sure if a fire started in the apartment, he wouldn't realize and keep sleeping. For the thousandth time since he'd known Carly, he wondered how could Colonel Shay let her live with Spencer and trust him to keep her safe, when it was more the other way around. He considered the option that Colonel Shay actually wanted someone to keep an eye _on Spencer_, and had taken advantage of the situation to leave Carly in his apartment.

Freddie picked his sleeping bag from the floor and got ready to go upstairs. Sam was surely asleep by now, but he'd see her face in the morning when she'd wake up and find out that he wasn't a nub. Either that, or she'd kick him in the face. And, after all, Carly and Sam were his best friends. Why couldn't he sleep in the same room as them? He was sure Spencer would let him. It's not like he'd try anything.

As predicted, Sam was already asleep and covered by the sheets. Freddie shot a smile at her, even though she couldn't see it. She looked so vulnerable when she was sleeping, as opposed to the tough, aggressive girl he'd see when she was awake. It reminded him Sam was human too, sometimes, and she had her weaknesses. She wasn't just a super girl who could kick anyone's butt.

He dropped the sleeping bag on the floor and lay down. Soon enough, he felt his eyes heavy and he fell into a deep sleep.

The dark was suffocating her. There was absolutely no light in that room, no source of warmth and no living forms. She was alone in a cold, dark, huge room. Actually, she didn't know how big the room was because she couldn't see anything, but she had paced around for an infinite time and never got to a door, or a window, so she guessed it must've been pretty big.

Her screams echoed through the walls (were there even walls? She wasn't sure), and no matter how much she'd scream, it seemed like no one heard her. She could hear laughs a few feet above her, maniacal laughs, and it just made her scream more, but no one would ever come to her rescue.

Suddenly, she felt weak in the knees. Her legs gave up, her breathing slowed down, and she found herself on the cold, hard floor of the room. She was shaking. She had to get out of there, and fast. But there was no exit. She felt a salty liquid on her face, and she realized she was crying. And smelling blood, not far from where she was standing.

Someone was calling her. "Sam!"

They seemed far away, but they were reaching her. They would take her away from that place. They were either there to save her or to kill her.

"Sam! Wake up!" The voice was closer now, and it sounded familiar. Everything around her started to slowly fade away.

"Sam! It's okay, it was just a dream….wake up!"

When she came back to reality, she realized Freddie was shaking her shoulders, in an attempt to wake her up. She was panting and sweating. She opened her eyes wide, hoping to be anywhere but the cold dark room, to find the mess she had made with the sheets and the pillow after tossing and turning all night.

Still breathing heavily, her eyes rested on Freddie, who looked very worried. "Freddie?"

Freddie gulped, and tried to calm her down. "Sam, don't worry. You had a nightmare, that's all. Everything's alright. Let's not watch horror movies before going to sleep ever again, ok?"

Sam shook her head frantically. "It's not because of the movie…"

"Sam, there's nothing wrong with it, I'm not judging you-"

"It's not because of the movie!" she repeated. "Now stop worrying and go back to sleep."

Freddie looked at her. "Wanna talk about it? You still seem pretty scared." He heard talking about nightmares, fears and traumas helped to get over them, or at least learn to live with them in the last case.

Sam shook her head. "I'm not scared."

Freddie sighed. "Come on, let's go give you a glass of milk. Maybe it'll calm you down."

"I _am _calm!"

"Come on." He stood up and offered her his hand. She seemed skeptical to accept it, but eventually she gave up. Her nightmare was still giving her shivers, and it was nice to know she was holding a warm, human hand in that very moment.

Freddie opened the door and led her downstairs, to the living room, switching on a few lights in the process because he realized the dark was making her uncomfortable. She was still shook by that dream.

He sat her on the couch while he went to the kitchen, pouring some milk in a pot and warming it up on the stoves for a few minutes. Sam was strangely silent, and he suspected she'd fallen asleep again. Instead, when he came back to her, he found her fully awake.

"Here. Drink this." he handed her a cup of warm milk, and she grabbed it.

"Thanks." Sam whispered as she brought the cup to her lips and started sipping.

He flopped on the couch next to her and stayed silent. He stared as she finished the cup of milk and put it on the table.

"So…do you want to talk about it?"

Sam rolled her eyes. "Benson, it was just a dream! I'm fine!"

"You were pretty frightened…I swear, it'll help you."

Sam bit her lip and sighed, pondering her decision. Should she tell him everything? Could she trust him not to laugh in her face? She shook her head. "Everything I'm about to say is influenced by a lack of sleep, alright? I wouldn't talk to you about it under normal circumstances and if you ask me tomorrow I will deny everything. This has to stay between us. Okay?"

He nodded, waiting patiently for her to talk.

Sam lay back on the couch and huffed, closing her eyes. "I've had these nightmares since I was four. I get them almost every night. I'm in a huge dark room, I'm alone, I can't see anything and there's no way out…" Her voice started quivering. "I hear laughs and voices above me, but they're not in the room…so I start screaming, I scream at the top of my lungs, but no one can hear me, and I feel trapped…suffocated…"

She started hyperventilating and Freddie tried to calm her down. "It's okay, it's just a dream-"

"No! It isn't! It's everything I've always been afraid of, something that I can't avoid for long!"

"What are you talking about?"

"This is how I feel! Trapped! This is how I'll end up! Alone! Don't you understand?" She tried not to yell to avoid waking up Carly, but it was nearly impossible.

Freddie frowned, trying to make a sense of what she was saying. He stayed silent to give her the chance to breathe and relax, and then, in the sweetest voice he could muster, he asked "Why do you feel like this?"

She shook her head. "I…I don't know. I can't explain it. Sometimes I feel like I'm trapped into myself. Like I can't afford feeling certain things, _being_ a certain way…like there's something constantly putting me down. I have to do everything by myself. I've always been on my own, I have to be the strong one, and I can't talk to anyone!"

Freddie gulped, absorbing everything. He never knew Sam felt like that. He could have never imagined. She had hid everything so well…. "Does Carly know?"

"Yes. Well, she knows about the nightmares, and I have slept at her house so many times she doesn't even hear me anymore when I wake up screaming. Sometimes she hears me, she tells me to calm down, and I go back to sleep."

"But you never told her the cause of the nightmares, did you?"

"No…I just told her I'd always had them."

Freddie nodded, and stared at her. His eyes tried to peer into her soul, but found a strong protection. Sam tried to avoid his eyes, looking down.

"You're not alone, you know."

"I can't help but think it, sometimes."

"Well, you're not." he took her hand, hoping the lack of sleep would keep her from slapping him in the face. Thankfully, after a few seconds his cheeks were still intact. "Carly, Spencer, Gibby and I, we all love you. Even if you're a bit crazy."

"I know. And I can't understand why you're still putting up with me after all these years, and I'm thankful for that. But there's no one in my dreams, except for me. I can't help but feel alone, and when I wake up, there's no one around, so…"

"You're not alone." he whispered, drawing little circles on her hands with his thumb. "You can talk to me when you want to. About anything."

Sam nodded. "Thanks." Then she did something that Freddie instantly blamed on the lack of sleep: she put her head on his shoulder and snuggled up to him.

Freddie didn't know what to do, so he put his arms around her shoulder. "Do you think you can go back to sleep now?"

"I think so…"

"If you have a nightmare, wake me up, ok?"

"Don't worry…I won't."

Freddie caressed her hair and cheeks until he felt her relax in his arms. He lay on the couch, taking her with him, and held her tighter. He placed a light kiss on her forehead, and kept caressing her arms until they both fell asleep, wrapped up in each other's arms and absorbed in each other's warmth.

Neither of them had nightmares that night.


End file.
